At Friday Evening Conversation, reference to 1969 song "The Year 2525" by Zager and Evans.
"If man is still aliveIf women can survive, they may find"
"If". . . such a small conditional word . . . with such a large unconditional in-breath/out-breath . . . following.
I asked Jesus
What he thought
About Trump
He said ‘who’?
Donald Trump —
Jesus didn’t answer
I suspect the Christ
Is a being of skillful speech —
Saying nothing as he did
Religion is the meditation on what is beyond understanding for the purpose of finding practices that bring us to the door of the unknown.
Once at that door, pause.
Try not to make up rules for others to follow to retrace your steps, noting how to avoid getting lost, and learning who to bribe in order to slip through gates well protected and laden with barriers.
Try not to follow someone else's roadmap.
Be cautious about the procedures and prohibitions of the protective class.
That which is beyond understanding will most likely remain beyond understanding.
Rather, approach with humility and reverence, not with passport and toll ticket.
TWIBU (that which is beyond understanding) should not become an acronym.
What, then, to do?
Become yourself, right there and then, because the past is just a goodbye.
Learn to say goodbye.
And when you get good at it, stand still for a while.
Most likely you'll realize you're standing at the epicenter of meditation.
You will realize that you are religious, that there is no religion outside of you.
If you do find yourself there, breathe out.
Pause.
And go on.
In your own way.
As door of the unknown.
stories, Colum McCann says,
draw us together
not guns, bombs, hate --
stories, mine yours
means we have to listen
there's not enough guns
to eliminate the hateful
or cull the creepy, so why
not share personal stories
see where we've come from
where we'd like to go, with
or without a bullet in the head,
just stories, my own, yours
his hers them those whomever
with no brass casings clinking
to sidewalk, no blood, no powder
residue on hand, no cuffs on wrists
once, upon a time, we'd begin --
somewhere far far away, deep
in my long forgotten soul, a light
This body, falling to earth, one white flake at a time, will not accumulate.
Rather, it will disappear into the wet asphalt and brown mud with no balloons or confetti.
If you can get through
The world by following
The Way and embracing
Virtue to the end of your years,
It can be said that you are able
To embody the Tao.
Huai-nan-tzu
This way, this virtue, this being no other than where and what you are -- knows nothing of the Tao.
And knowing nothing of the Tao, is the Tao, all its own.
"Its own" is the nameless falling and disappearing, moment to moment, which is the grace of being-in-the-world, as-it-is, being-as-the-world.
To embody the Tao is to drop off body.
To know the Tao (good luck!) is to drop off mind.
What remains?
(Silly question, eh?)
Try this -- what is, remaining, is that which is without what used to be called 'you'.
How do you understand this?
As the old Jewish man in Bensonhurst smoking cigar outside corner soda shop sitting on wood folding chair used to say, "Don't ask!"
Don’t take the bait
There’s a hidden hook
You will be yanked
Up and out
Into net, captured —
No amount of squirming
Will return your breath
Until no longer moving
You are on someone’s deck
Motor started, your dead
Remains going back to camp
To be gutted, burnt, devoured
Mark these words, do not
Be lured out of your depth
Into someone else’s idea
of freedom, theirs, not yours
In our Friday
Evening Conservation
Some think I
Should love Trump
They might be right
It’s hard to say
Like a tongue twister
Coated with vinegar
We were in Greenwich villiage
Outside NYU chapel in 1971
On Easter Sunday
thinking about life together
An itinerant hobo on steps
Smiling out into camera
Someone suggested we have to be better educated.
Then this thought arose:
There is no better teacher than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time. (Malcolm X)
America, even with its Department of Education being gutted and eliminated, is receiving some fine teaching and a significantly powerful curriculum these days.
One can only wonder what the graduating class will become.
In prison today talk of Rupert Spira, Islam, Vedanta, Mary Oliver’s “The Buddha’s Last Instruction,” what is happening in Burkina Faso, and what is happening in the United States.
Here we were, a Muslim from India, a Muslim from Somali, a Hindu from Alabama, a Greek Orthodox from Maine, and an Irish Buddhist Catholic from Brooklyn.
The respectful agreements and respectful differences talking about prayer, postures, consciousness, origin, matter, non-dual extension of awareness, the questions we have, the time we live in.
Our frightened faces, making of ourselves a light.
let us now praise
the greatest man ever born
the cabinet in White House
does this heavy work
burying the sickly pony
under horseshit and cynicism
as children everywhere
cry and cringe and crawl away
Night prayer
Chant from France
Reminds me
Even if all is lost
There is an all --
Albeit lost
Dystopia approaches
don't be deluded
nor think there's
anything you can do
to avoid it. Neighbors
wanted this for country,
wanted non-whites out
wants any disagreement
terminated, arrested
punished, exiled --
The time is now
to oppose, dissent, protest.
Cowards try to appease,
weak-minded lawyers
giddy media personalities
wave pompoms and cheer.
What sacrifices will we make
what abnegation articulate
what residue of courage drips
onto earth, what resolve remains?
There is a tipping point
after which evil takes helm
steering ship of state
irrevocably into murky
depths of doom, salty
sinking to bottom darkness
Several years ago, doing an independent study with a student finishing his BA in prison, we took time with Hajime Tanabe (1885–1962).
Today I am sent a chapter about his metanoetics.
I look him up again.
Metanoetics (from Greek: μετανόησις "conversion, repentance" from μετανοῶ "I repent"; zangedō Japanese: 懺悔道 from dō 道 “path” and zange 懺悔 “confession, penance, repentance”) is a neologism coined by Hajime Tanabe in his 1945 work Philosophy as Metanoetics. The term denotes a way of doing philosophy (or a form of "non-philosophy") that understands the limits of reason. Though the method used by Tanabe to reach this conclusion relies on the transcendental analysis developed by Kant, Tanabe aligns the method with the Buddhist concept of Absolute Nothingness and ideas from of Pure Land Buddhism, Zen, and Christianity. (Wikipedia)
The word/name Hajime means beginning or origin. It reminds me of Gebser’s “The Ever-present Origin.” There, as well, reason and the rational have difficulty traversing the notion of atemporal and aperspectival reality.
Tanabe states that Kant did not take the critique of reason far enough. By this Tanabe means that a radical critique of reason should question whether reason itself can understand its ability to embody self-awareness and ultimate reality. The individual exercising reason should remain aware of the crisis of reason and see the antinomy, those rationally unsolvable contradictions that reason unearths, as the basis for personal renewal. The crisis of reason is not just a disruption of thought; it also involves a crisis of will. As the individual understands the radical limits of reason in facing the antinomies, they become aware of what Kant called radical evil. This is the will to act according to desires beyond those presented by rational reflection. With this realization comes further crisis and thereby the possibility of metanoia. (Wikipedia)
Kant’s philosophy of religion speaks of radical evil, as here explicated in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
Obedience to the moral law, of which Kant believes religion should be an example, appears to be an expectation that is neither universally nor willingly practiced. What is notable about the first two chapters of Religion is that he addresses this phenomenon in a manner that his Enlightenment predecessors had not: The failure of human moral agents to observe the moral law is symptomatic of a character or disposition (Gesinnung) that has been corrupted by an innate propensity to evil, which is to subordinate the moral law to self-conceit. Because this propensity corrupts an agent’s character as a whole, and is the innate “source” of every other evil deed, it may be considered “radical.” However, this propensity can be overcome through a single and unalterable “revolution” in the mode of thought (Revolution für die Denkungsart), which is simultaneously the basis for a gradual reform of character in the mode of sense (für die Sinnesart); for without the former, there is no basis for the latter. This reformation of character ultimately serves as the ground for moral agents within an ethical commonwealth, which, when understood eschatologically, is the Kingdom of God on Earth.
Kant’s account of radical evil demonstrates how evil can be a genuine moral alternative while nevertheless being an innate condition. Given the general optimism of the time, Kant’s view was revolutionary. It not only harkened back to an older Augustinian account of human nature, but also affirmed a propensity to evil within human nature using his apparatus of practical reason. (IEP)
Heidegger has long grabbed my attention saying that we have forgotten Being, forgotten Origin. I am reminded that Being and Origin are not long past, but are current and ongoing. The prospect of an ongoing origin, ever-present and ever-revealing, coincidenting with every breath and every second of time, changes things in our consciousness, if our awareness takes in the revelation. This change of mind/heart, this metanoia, redirects our perception from a self-instigated activity to an other-found reception steeped in attentive receptivity to the surround of Being/Origin.
Kant's notion of radical evil and our rational reflection on contradiction and crisis often leaves us uncertain as to what the mind/heart is capable of. How find a true direction that retrieves Being/Origin? Is it a place prior to thought and rational deliberation? Do we posit some state of innocence and beneficence? How do we "care" φροντίδα, frontida (Greek)? (I have long felt that the Greek word "kritikos" (κριτικός) means "critical" or "able to judge" stemming from the root word "krino" (κρίνω), meaning "to judge" -- has at its core the notion of care and caring -- enough to long to discern what is true, to deliberate carefully the evidence, arguments, legal and moral foundation of the matter at hand.)
Back to Tanabe:
In this state of crisis, the individual gains the perspective required to see another source of enlightenment. Tanabe uses the Shin Buddhist term of "Other-power" to denote this source, also called Absolute Nothingness. This metanoia realizes the inadequacy of human efforts to discover the source of self-awareness and surrenders to it. This surrender provides the power to continue the search for meaning within the midst of everyday life and to act in a compassionate and charitable way to bring others to self-realization. (Wikipedia)
To surrender to the source of self/other awareness, what could be referred to as Absolute Nothingness, is a radical emptying into Being/Origin.
Is this retrievable?
Can we overcome the suspicion that such a reality is tantamount to self-annihilation? Or, is it a promontory of a new perspective, a new perception that circles back into/unto Itself, Jittai? (In Japanese, "jittai" (実態, じったい) means "true state," "actual condition," or "reality")
We wonder how to find that which is the very reality we are, the very surround sustaining us, our true nature -- Being-Itself, True life, Very existence.
We look. But still, it seems, we still haven't found what we're looking for.
It’s not hard to do what is right and good for one another.
What is needed is a soul, a heart, and a mind willing to care.
Let’s support those who are willing and start a new movement of decency.
Yes
You have my attention
No
I do not understand
Maybe
If you were clearer
What?
Can you say that again
Yes
I’ll be here
No
I’ve no place to go
(Silence)
Are you there
(Silence)
repeat after me -- you will do the same things time after time -- life after life --
you will follow the same bad advice -- the same ill-informed loudmouth -- the same extrusion manipulation by hucksters and conmen -- the same embarrassing fealty --
unless --
you change --
drastically --
in mind and heart
Timothy David Snyder’s Twenty Lessons on Fighting Tyranny From The Twentieth Century —
Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so. From across the fearful twentieth century, here are twenty lessons about what it takes to oppose tyranny, adapted to the circumstances of today.
1. Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.
2. Defend institutions. It is institutions that help us to preserve decency. They need our help as well. Do not speak of “our institutions” unless you make them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions do not protect themselves. So choose an institution you care about and take its side.
3. Beware the one-party state. The parties that remade states and suppressed rivals were not omnipotent from the start. They exploited a historic moment to make political life impossible for their opponents. So support the multi-party system and defend the rules of democratic elections.
4. Take responsibility for the face of the world. The symbols of today enable the reality of tomorrow. Notice the swastikas and other signs of hate. Do not look away, and do not get used to them. Remove them yourself and set an example for others to do so.
5. Remember professional ethics. When political leaders set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become important. It is hard to subvert a rule-of-law state without lawyers, or to hold show trials without judges. Authoritarians need obedient civil servants, and concentration camp directors seek businessmen interested in cheap labor.
6. Be wary of paramilitaries. When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching around with torches and pictures of a Leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the end has come.
7. Be reflective if you must be armed. If you carry a weapon in public service, God bless you and keep you. But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things. Be ready to say no.
8. Stand out. Someone has to. It is easy to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. Remember Rosa Parks. The moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow.
9. Be kind to our language. Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying. Make an effort to separate yourself from the internet. Read books.
10. Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.
11. Investigate. Figure things out for yourself. Spend more time with long articles. Subsidize investigative journalism by subscribing to print media. Realize that some of what is on the internet is there to harm you. Learn about sites that investigate propaganda campaigns (some of which come from abroad). Take responsibility for what you communicate to others.
12. Make eye contact and small talk. This is not just polite. It is part of being a citizen and a responsible member of society. It is also a way to stay in touch with your surroundings, break down social barriers, and understand whom you should and should not trust. If we enter a culture of denunciation, you will want to know the psychological landscape of your daily life.
13. Practice corporeal politics. Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them.
14. Establish a private life. Nastier rulers will use what they know about you to push you around. Scrub your computer of malware. Remember that email is skywriting. Consider using alternative forms of the Internet, or simply using it less. Have personal exchanges in person. For the same reason, resolve any legal trouble.
15. Contribute to good causes. Be active in organizations, political or not, that express your own view of life. Pick a charity or two and set up autopay.
16. Learn from peers in other countries. Keep up your friendships abroad, or make new friends abroad. The present difficulties in the United States are an element of a larger trend. And no country is going to find a solution by itself. Make sure you and your family have passports.
17. Listen for dangerous words. Be alert to the use of the words extremism and terrorism. Be alive to the fatal notions of emergency and exception. Be angry about the treacherous use of patriotic vocabulary.
18. Be calm when the unthinkable arrives. Modern tyranny is terror management. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that authoritarians exploit such events in order to consolidate power. Do not fall for it.
19. Be a patriot. Set a good example of what America means for the generations to come.
20. Be as courageous as you can. If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, then all of us will die under tyranny.
Hear John Lithgow present these lessons
When children
We were told
To pray for
A happy death
So I do
Pray for
The happy death
Of beloved president
He’ll finally meet
Someone who’ll love him
Just the way he is —
(The miserable bugger)
God rest his soul!
“I will,” says mighty
Compassionate
One
Reading Jean-Luc Marion. Jean-Luc Marion is professor emeritus of philosophy at the Sorbonne and retired professor of Catholic studies, the philosophy of religions, and theology at the University of Chicago.
As in the Tao Te Ching, it is a question of our being or not being a saint, or wise person.
JLM: The most serious issue is the organization of each of us. If you want to do something to reform the Church, start by reforming yourself and perhaps there will be some consequences for the Church. We all know what is going wrong in the Catholic Church. For us it is not new. I could not imagine that the Church is without sinners. What is surprising is not that there is sin in the Church—even at a systemic level as an effect, as people say, of clericalism and abuse of power. What is surprising is that the Church remains the best washing machine to make white linen out of dirty linen. That is, to produce some saints, some holiness.
KW: Another Frenchman, Léon Bloy, famously declared that there is but one sadness, and that is for us not to be saints.
JLM: Yes, and at the purely institutional level, when you compare the churches with the academic world, the business world, the military, and political administrations, the churches are not the worst places. In the business world, for instance, people say, “Of course there is corruption.” We know business is dirty, and we are used to that. There is no scandal there. In the case of the Church—fortunately—the contradiction between what the churches are and what they are supposed to be is a scandal.
But to be fair, we should admit that each of us is in the same situation as the Church, because we contradict what we say in our behavior. So, yes, the Church is not perfect, and it will never be. That’s why I’m allowed to be a member of the Church. And that’s also why self-proclaimed saints who take on the role of the reformer are always a bit suspect to me.
KW: You have had some pretty pungent things to say about Church reformers. You have urged French Catholics to “leave ecclesiastical reform to workers who specialize in domestic repairs,” which may be a little bit difficult now that the laity are being called upon to lend their expertise to ministries of the Church.
JLM: And they are doing a good job, especially women at the parish level.
KW: Agreed, but let’s get back to Church reformers. You’re wary of Christians who claim to speak prophetically to the Church or to society. Your wariness seems appropriate because in American public life and in our churches, we tend to drape the mantle of prophet around anyone who speaks out about social ills—but only those with whom we already agree. On the other hand, we have witnessed a Martin Luther King, a Dorothy Day, and a handful of other genuinely prophetic figures. How do you distinguish between the authentic prophet and the sham?
JLM: First, I’m not qualified to distinguish among the prophets—in that case, I would claim to be a prophet myself! Second, it takes time to judge whether someone is truly a prophet. What is his or her legacy? History is instructive. The great originators or reformers in the Church are always people who at first were not well received, like many of the founders of religious orders. It’s also true of originators in philosophy. It takes years to judge the impact. You judge by the results, and I think there are no other rules.
(--from, ‘We Are Not Yet Christians’, An interview with Jean-Luc Marion, Kenneth L. Woodward, December 17, 2022, Commonweal)
The word "saint" comes from the Greek word "hagios," meaning "holy" or "set apart".
Many of our churched brothers and sisters want no truck with saints or the notion of saints. I'm sure their political reasons are sound and justified. But in my classic tradition saints are held in esteem. Something about them seemed to breakthrough the limitations of human nature, or, perhaps break into the true realm of human nature, so as to reflect more noticeably characteristics thought of as those of a God-natured individual.
A saint need not be pious. Need not be religious in churchy sense. Need not be without flaw or fault.
What a saint is could be considered someone attuned to the invitation into truth and compassion. No fanfare, no organ music. Just straightforward standup affirmation of the needs of individuals and communities of people, the cries of nature, the needs of all beings, the pleas of suffering anywhere.
The cult of diffident denial of relationality and abject avoidance of intersectional reliance on one another is not saintliness. Egoism and narcissistic greed are not hallmarks of caring compassion.
If we drop the negative associations with the terms "saint" or "wise one" -- we might be open to what is revealing itself.
Consider mulling or even becoming what those terms entail.
If we forget the rational insistence on separation and class distinction, we might look more softly on each one passing near us.
Say hello.
Begin to trust...
again.
My radio is tuned to Canadian stations. Radio and newspapers from New Brunswick province, Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, Ontario, Quebec, the Globe and Mail, and various tv stations. I want to be ready when Canada welcomes Maine into the family of Atlantic Maritime Provinces.
I consider Maine, bordered by two Canadian provinces and the Atlantic Ocean, philosophically and spiritually a unique place tucked at the northeast corner of the United States and southeast extension of maritime Canada.
Washington DC is a foreign land with alien leadership. I suspect they’ll leave the planet in due course.
That’s my point of view.
Eh?
Yeah!
Tuesday Poem
borders are invisible thought
saying this is us that is you --
since falling off duality
this mendicant hobo steps over
the invisible, finding foot
on earth, just earth, no nation
no silly customs other than
the custom of welcome warmth
(-wfh, 8apr25)
In prison this morning, conversation about our experiences in school and concerns about where things are in education.
Later, writing a reference for a former student with whom I studied in Maine State Prison, I'm reminded of Jacques Rancière (b.1940) and Joseph Jacotot (4March 1770 - 30July 1840) in The Ignorant Schoolmaster, Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation:
“Whoever looks always finds. He doesn’t necessarily find what he was looking for, and even less what he was supposed to find. But he finds something new to relate to the thing he already knows. What is essential is the continuous vigilance, the attention that never subsides without irrationality setting in…”
“There aren’t two sorts of mind. There is inequality in the manifestations of intelligence, according to the greater or lesser energy communicated to the intelligence by the will for discovering and combining new relations; but there is no hierarchy of intellectual capacity. Emancipation is becoming conscious of this equality of nature. This is what opens the way to all adventure in the land of knowledge. It is a matter of daring to be adventurous, and not whether one learns more or less well or more or less quickly.”
“The only mistake would be to take our opinions for the truth.”
“Reason begins when discourses organized with the goal of being right cease, beings where equality is recognized: not an equality decreed by law or force, not a passively received equality, but an equality in act, verified, at each step by those marchers who, in their constant attention to themselves a[n]d in their endless revolving around the truth, find the right sentences to make themselves understood by others.”
“Equality was not an end to attain, but a point of departure, a supposition to maintain in every circumstance. ”
https://divnapopov.com/2020/06/03/jacques-ranciere-the-ignorant-schoolmaster-five-lessons-in-intellectual-emancipation/
It was always a bone of contention, this premise that 'All men [humans] have equal intelligence.' Also, that the key to education is finding out, not being told the way things are. Not explication, but investigation.
The revelation that came to Joseph Jacotot amounts to this: the logic of the explicative system had to be overturned. Explication is not necessary to remedy an incapacity to understand.
On the contrary, that very incapacity provides the structuring fiction of the explicative conception of the world. It is the explicator who needs the incapable and not the other way
around; it is he who constitutes the incapable as such. To explain something to someone is first of all to show him he cannot understand it by himself. Before being the act of the pedagogue, explication is the myth of pedagogy, the parable of a world divided into knowing minds and ignorant ones, ripe minds and immature ones, the capable and the incapable, the intelligent and the stupid. The explicator’s special trick consists of this double inaugural gesture. On the one hand, he decrees the absolute beginning: it is only now that the act of learning will begin. On the other, having thrown a veil of ignorance over everything that is to be learned, he appoints himself to the task of lifting it. Until he came along, the child has been groping blindly, figuring out riddles. Now he will learn. He heard words and repeated them. But now it is time to read, and he will not understand words if he doesn’t understand syllables, and he won’t understand syllables if he doesn’t understand letters that neither the book nor his parents can make him understand—only the master’s word. The pedagogical myth, we said, divides the world into two. More precisely, it divides intelligence into two. It says that there is an inferior intelligence and a superior one. The former registers perceptions by chance, retains them, interprets and repeats them empirically, within the closed circle of habit and need. This is the intelligence of the young child and the common man. The superior intelligence knows things by reason, proceeds by method, from the simple to the complex, from the part to the whole. It is this intelligence that allows the master to transmit his knowledge by adapting it to the intellectual capacities of the student and allows him to verify that the student has satisfactorily understood what he learned. Such is the principle of explication. From this point on, for Jacotot, such will be the principle of enforced stultification.*
*In the absence of a precise English equivalent for the French term abrutir (to render stupid,
to treat like a brute), I’ve translated it as “stultify." Stultify carries the connotations of numbing
and deadening better than the word "stupefy,” which implies a sense of wonderment or amazement absent in the French.— TRANS. [Kristin Ross]
Some suggest today that it is a stultifying experience taking place, the absence of any productive intelligence at work in the stultifying behavior of so-called leaders. Just casual whim throwing causal chaos over everything.
“The most thought-provoking thing in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking.”
(--Martin Heidegger)
Sobering, if not stultifying.
From Sunday Evening Practice:
Chapter Sixty-seven
The whole world says the Tao that I have attained is so great that It seems unreal.
Because It is indeed so great, thus It seemed unreal.
If It were real, It would have been insignificantly small.
I have Three Treasures that I hold and guard.
The first is Kindness.
The second is Simplicity.
The third is Humbleness.
With Kindness, one can be courageous.
With Simplicity, one can be generous.
With Humbleness, one can be the lead to provide guidance.
Now, if one abandons kindness and yet tries to be courageous,
If one abandons simplicity and yet tries to be generous.
If one abandons humbleness and yet tries to lead as guidance,
He is doomed to perish.
One who fights a battle with kindness shall win.
(-from Tao Te Ching, translator uncertain)
A prayer for those doomed to thrive!
Live as though there is no death
Die as though there is no life
In the morning there might be coffee
Or, if you are gone, the coffee is gone
Either way, UConn women are champs
Duke men lost
Does anybody really know what time it is
Jesus didn't want
us to praise him
he wanted us
to be him
Siddhartha Gautama
didn't want us to copy
his lifestyle, he wanted
us to be him
who is Christ that we
become him
who is Buddha that we
become him --
I look out window
I see sky, I see earth
become that, says christ
become this, says buddha
Christ disappears, Buddha
disappears -- only this
only that, remains --
become that, become this
(christ smiles through air
buddha smiles through ground)
if you love me
keep my word
if you word me
give my love away
if you are me
love keeps giving
let me say it plain --
find me here, be me there
this, this
is christ the toward
Reading obituaries of old chums and classmates from sixty eight years ago. Dead now or vanished into fog of time the curious wonder of where are they now passes this Sunday morning.
No obituary should survive a ten minute printing. They are silly things, their dates, places, accomplishments, loved ones. Write them up, print them, then burn them in metal trash can top, be done with them.
Audiéntes autem unus post unum exíbant, incipiéntes a senióribus.
But upon hearing this, they went away, one by one, beginning with the eldest.
(Sexta, Antiphona, 6apr25)
Not always the eldest. Some younger. Makes for some wistfulness that they went younger than old.
We elderly are a strange lot. No rhyme or reason to be still here, except to protest stupidity and venality in public and private venues. But that might just be crankiness and bitterness. Hard telling.
I write brief notes on two obituary pages, two good guys from north 6th street high school who became Franciscan brothers, lived, served, and died on Long Island, that foreign country.
My obituary will be brief — “He accomplished nothing and stood by it.”
Maybe a quote from Creeley or Lowell or Roethke or Hugo — one of their lines about being poor passing facts or what’s wrong will always be wrong or words words as if all worlds were there, or my wisdom I wear in despair of something better, or, no dog knows my smell.
Let the dead be buried with other dead, no need for exculpatory or exorbitant, or exhortatory, or exorcistic wallpaper.
We were all barely reliable and passable human beings who dodged our way through bullets or bulletins sounding dangerous inevitability or tragic outcomes necessitating sudden and profound rumination.
I used to sit with the dying.
I sat with the dead.
A gift of being a hospice volunteer.
It was quiet. It was deeply concentrating. They died. I drove home after contemplating in still rooms with them their sudden silence.
We sat, silently, in that silence.
And do sit now in such.
